The present invention relates to a cable television (hereinafter, referred to as CATV) broadcasting system, and a terminal device for the CATV broadcasting system.
Recently, CATV systems have come into wide use. Users of the CATV systems who contract to receive CATV broadcasts receive a broadcast signal transmitted through a CATV network from a broadcasting center with use of a terminal device. The terminal device includes a converter connected to the CATV network and a TV receiver connected to the converter. The TV receiver reproduces images and sounds based on the broadcast signal. The terminal device is usually arranged such that when the terminal device is turned ON, the channel which was being viewed when the terminal device was turned OFF is automatically selected.
The CATV broadcasting system as described above may also be used to broadcast various notifications such as, for example, notification of temporary interruption of broadcasting due to construction work on the network and the like (hereinafter, referred to as "notification information"). Generally, the notification information is broadcast through a specific channel (hereinafter, referred to as a notification channel). Since the terminal device is arranged to automatically select, when the terminal device is turned ON, the last channel the users viewed, the users may not see the notification information unless they positively select the notification channel. Thus, there is a problem in that the notification information may not be effectively delivered.
To cope with this problem, it is possible to broadcast the notification information through all broadcast channels at once at a predetermined time, however, since a program being viewed by users must be forcibly interrupted to display the notification information, the users may be inconvenienced.